Maggie Jochild

Online Poetry

Holding Bread

So Much the Stronger

Sara's Fruit

UFOS

21 MAY 1979

21 MAY 1979

Tear gas will hang in the air
A just-visible cloud
You can thread your way around it

We went up the alley beside AAA
And rode the Market Street trolley
Down to Noe Valley, where we'd
Left our cars going to a rally
We thought Getting on the trolley
Was my first taste of accepting
Fear in lieu of respect
As eleven of us filed up
The narrow stairs, paid fares
Booted, wet bandanas at our necks
Loose clothes, buzzed hair
Everybody on the car went not just
Silent, but still. Not even nudges

Here's a bit of trivia you might not know
When a police car burns, at some point
The siren goes off and doesn't cease
Until the car is almost gutted
In a city plaza ringed by massive stone
Government buildings, this wail
Is contained, bounced back and forth
We burned eleven cop cars that night

The next day on my delivery route
I made a point of swinging by
The block containing City Hall
Every window on the front was
Boarded up with raw plywood
I remember how the fags would
Muscle slam a parking meter
Until it shifted from the concrete
Three or four of them a side, boys
In leather chaps, sissies grown up
Grunting, laughing, until it moved
Like a molar coming loose, and
They could rip it from the sidewalk
Sakrete bulbous root at one end,
The other a metal lozenge with
Expired showing through the window
They'd lay it in their arms and heave
It back and forth, like someone in
A sling, until with a cry, it launched
Up in a firelit arc and exploded
Through the ornate windows of
That building where Milk and Moscone
Had been gunned down by the
Cops' chosen boy, using his never-
Turned-in service revolver

The day after, crowds of people
Stood shocked and silent in the
Light of midday. Suddenly they
Knew, and we knew, we could be
Pushed too far. Cops rode three to
A patrol car that day, and I got
Four tickets for made-up infractions
Before, with gritted teeth, I scraped
From my delivery car the sticker I'd
Pasted on the bumper that morning:
IF YOU'RE WHITE IT'S NOT CALLED MURDER

Those are the steps you climbed
To go be married, to get a piece of paper
I would never have believed could
Carry our names. I can hear the wheel
Clanking to the end of its circuit, and
The whir as it rests a moment before
Starting round again Here you go

10 March 2004, 1:53 p.m.